President Trump’s travel ban on citizens from 12 countries went into effect today. Reaction to the ban has been more muted than to the bans of Trump’s first term.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump’s latest travel ban went into effect today. It restricts citizens of a dozen countries from entering the U.S. He passed a similar prohibition his first time in office, but the reaction this time has been different. NPR’s Jasmine Garsd covers immigration. Hi, Jasmine.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: Remind us which countries are on this list and why were they banned.
GARSD: It is a long list – 12 countries fully banned, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia. And citizens from seven other countries will be subjected to partial bans, including Cuba, Sierra Leone and Venezuela. Now, these are countries that the administration has deemed a threat to national security or public safety, and this ban builds on the ban from Trump’s first term, which was upheld by the Supreme Court.
SHAPIRO: The president signed this new travel ban last Wednesday, but there has not been the same outcry that there was the first time he did something like this in 2017. What do you think changed?
GARSD: Well, I reported on those massive protests back in 2017. People might remember them better as the so-called Muslim ban. The mood has shifted tangibly this time. Over the weekend, I spent time in a Yemeni community in Brooklyn, and the folks I met there didn’t want to talk on record. I was told point-blank, we are afraid. And that makes sense. The government has sent a very chilling message – speak up, and you could get arrested and deported.
SHAPIRO: Is it possible that the travel ban is being overshadowed by the protests we’re seeing in Los Angeles against immigration enforcement and the government’s response to those protests?
GARSD: Well, yeah, detainment and deportation are the big issues nationally. But people have been out to protest this ban. On Saturday, I was at a small vigil for Yemen in Manhattan. Kathy Breen is a retired nurse. She’s 77 years old, and she told me this.
KATHY BREEN: I’m here out of desperation. It’s just beyond comprehension. I don’t know what to say. We make refugees, but we don’t take them.
GARSD: And she thinks another reason people aren’t showing up more is that there’s just too many things to protest.
BREEN: I think it’s people being overwhelmed. We don’t know, when we hear the news, what’s going to happen next with this administration, with this president. But what I still can’t accept is that we don’t say no.
GARSD: And Ari, I should add that I’m hearing real confusion about how exactly this ban is going to work.
SHAPIRO: What do you mean by that? What are people telling you?
GARSD: Well, I spoke to people in the Haitian community in Miami. Haitians have been really hard hit by the Trump immigration crackdown. And human rights activist Guerline Jozef, from the nonprofit organization Haitian Bridge Alliance, says folks who are legally in the U.S. are worried.
GUERLINE JOZEF: They don’t know if it will be possible for them to travel with the Haitian passport, even though they have a U.S. visa. Because of the ambiguity of this announcement, nobody’s really sure.
GARSD: So there’s like a sense of paralysis in the Haitian community. I mean, even for those who have valid visas, the news today is absolutely nerve-racking.
SHAPIRO: Because I’m sure many people who are in the country legally have relatives who are back in their home country. And this means…
GARSD: Absolutely.
SHAPIRO: …They won’t be able to visit them, yeah.
GARSD: Yeah, absolutely. She was telling me that there’s people who had plans to visit. She knows people who had plans to visit in Canada, and now they’re staying put.
SHAPIRO: That is NPR’s Jasmine Garsd, who covers immigration, on the latest version of the Trump travel ban taking effect today. Thank you, Jasmine.
GARSD: Thanks for having me.
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